Procedural Politics: Issues, Influence, and Institutional Choice in the European Union

Procedural Politics: Issues, Influence, and Institutional Choice in the European Union. By Joseph Jupille. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 294p. $80.00.

According to Joseph Jupille, “procedural politics” extracts from the European Union's policymaking process the conflicts and maneuvers regarding which of the EU institutions will have a say in which policy decisions, and how important that say will be. Ordinary procedural politics are of considerable importance, and the case studies the author presents give us an excellent picture of the coalition building and conflict resolution that goes on among the member states' ministers, the Commission officials, and the leaders and committees of the European Parliament. The cases go into considerable depth and display procedural politics in a fascinating variety of forms. Procedural politics among the EU institutions regard how issues are defined in order to be classified according to the varying treaty-defined competences of the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and the European Parliament. But ordinary procedural politics goes on in a time frame that is bounded by new treaty rules as to what procedures will be applicable to what policy issues. In ordinary procedural politics, that is, during periods in between Treaty revisions, the Commission can employ a variety of strategies and tactics to keep Council members on its side or else in conflict with one another short of the point where division means stalemate. As it has gained in power via treaty revisions, the Parliament can be expected to win something from these battles, sometimes on its own, at other times in alliance with the Commission.

According to Joseph Jupille, “procedural politics” extracts from the European Union's policymaking process the conflicts and maneuvers regarding which of the EU institutions will have a say in which policy decisions, and how important that say will be. Ordinary procedural politics are of considerable importance, and the case studies the author presents give us an excellent picture of the coalition building and conflict resolution that goes on among the member states' ministers, the Commission officials, and the leaders and committees of the European Parliament. The cases go into considerable depth and display procedural politics in a fascinating variety of forms. Procedural politics among the EU institutions regard how issues are defined in order to be classified according to the varying treaty-defined competences of the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and the European Parliament. But ordinary procedural politics goes on in a time frame that is bounded by new treaty rules as to what procedures will be applicable to what policy issues. In ordinary procedural politics, that is, during periods in between Treaty revisions, the Commission can employ a variety of strategies and tactics to keep Council members on its side or else in conflict with one another short of the point where division means stalemate. As it has gained in power via treaty revisions, the Parliament can be expected to win something from these battles, sometimes on its own, at other times in alliance with the Commission.

As noted, the main actors in these dramas are three EU institutions. Procedural politics involves coalition building, with policy substance being the focal points of temporary partnerships between pairs of the three central actors, sometimes the Commission and the Parliament and sometimes the Council and the Commission, but not, at least in the cases examined, the Council and the Parliament. The Commission would appear to enjoy the enviable position of being able to choose which of the other two will be its partner in any particular conflict over procedure. While the Parliament was in a relatively weak position before the major treaty bargains of the past two decades, the Commission was at times a valuable ally against the Council; but Jupille also presents cases wherein the more powerful Council and Commission could leave the Parliament on the outside looking in. Surprisingly, this included a case that was resolved in favor of a coalition of the Commission with the Council and against the wishes of the Parliament, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the stronger position of the Parliament in the period following the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. In all of these cases, the European Court of Justice played the role of final arbiter.

But what happens when none of the three possible pairings can materialize? This may be the case when the Commission refuses to initiate a policy that either the Council or the Parliament, or both, would support; or when even a qualified majority is unavailable in the Council for a Commission proposal that the Parliament would support. The author recognizes that deadlocks occur, but turns his back on the principal means by which they might be resolved, that is, by decisions reached between heads of state and government—not in the Council of Ministers, but rather in the European Council or via less formal contacts that produce compromises the Council of Ministers and the Commission can implement. In the book's index, the entry for the European Council is “see the Council of the European Union.” Likewise, the entry for the Council of Ministers is “see Council of the European Union.” Under the latter heading, many pages are listed, in which “the Council” referred to as the Council of Ministers, which, as noted, is one of the principal players of “procedural politics.” So is the European Council, which is the name of the body of heads of state and government who have usually met three to four times a year, among other purposes, to resolve the issues that the other players of procedural politics cannot resolve. This happens because the only players who can resolve the issues are the heads of state and government. But they are not playing procedural politics. What they reach agreement on is substantive policy, unless they are going a step further and agreeing on changes in the rules that govern both substantive and procedural politics, as they also have in the historic agreements that have produced treaty revisions.

It is in this latter function that the author acknowledges the existence of a sort of deus ex machina. He distinguishes between procedural politics, which involves the choice of procedure available, whether it be consultation, cooperation, or codecision, and higher-order decisions involved in treaty revision. Yet these higher-order decisions are the source of the rules that constitute “procedural politics.” This is not to say that they overshadow procedural politics. It is to say that by keeping procedural revision out of the definition of procedural politics, the predictability of procedural politics is time-bound, because it must periodically give way to new rules of the game, as new treaties come into effect and, until the EU Constitution comes on board, hopefully to be more stable, less susceptible to major changes than the preceding series of treaties have been.

But there will always be procedural politics. The contribution of Jupille's work is to bring it into clearer focus as an important part of the EU's scope of policymaking competence. While it is this reviewer's view that the author has not made it clear enough what procedural politics is not, he has given us some highly effective tools for understanding procedural politics when it does occur.